Hon Hai launches program for tablets operating on Firefox

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday unveiled a new program to speed up the development of the Firefox operating system for tablets with the system’s developer, Mozilla Corp.

Hon Hai said the program is aimed to recruit more talent to facilitate the development of the Firefox system for tablets and the supply chain. The program would also encourage social networking companies to participate in the ecosystem, the company said in a statement.

To encourage more developers around the world to join the ecosystem and improve the tablet version of the open-platform OS, the two companies plan to offer free tablets to software and application developers. Hon Hai said it also plans to work with third-party companies to hold training programs, forums and application competitions.

In June, Hon Hai inked a memorandum of understanding with Mozilla to develop the Firefox operating system for mobile devices. The companies said at the time that five mobile devices were under development, including smartphones and tablets, powered by FireFox, from Huawei Technology (華為), ZTE Inc (中興) and LG.

Hon Hai said in October that it hopes to build an industry exchange platform and an ecosystem in Taiwan for HTML5 technology.

The HTML5 platform is expected to be built gradually from this year, and the Web technology is to contribute greatly to Hon Hai’s business strategy, which is aimed at covering everything from mobile phones and tablets to PCs, TVs and beyond, the firm said.